Garden Route fears worst is still to come as fires resume
Hemmed in by sea and fire, evacuees fled to beach
A MAN died, thousands fled their homes, and one of South Africa’s top schools was partially destroyed yesterday when huge wildfires flared up in gale-force wind.
By late yesterday the circumstances of the latest death were still unclear, but it brings to six the total number killed in fires that began on Wednesday outside Knysna and subsequently spread as far as Port Elizabeth.
A further five people have been transferred to hospital with serious injuries since the fires began, Knysna Municipality confirmed late yesterday.
Several buildings inside the Woodridge College campus outside Port Elizabeth were still on fire yesterday evening, Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality spokesman Mthubanzi Mniki confirmed.
“Firefighters are working hard to extinguish and save other buildings. Everyone at the school was evacuated early [yesterday],” Mniki said in a statement. It was uncertain how much of the school remained, Mniki told the Sunday Times. The school’s entrance had served as a fire-fighting jointoperations centre, but officials beat a hasty retreat when flames threatened to engulf them.
It was just one of innumerable fires associated with strong wind and low-pressure winter weather moving eastwards across the country. In four days the fires have wreaked havoc across a wide area, in particular around Knysna, where many residents were evacuated for the second time this week.
Late yesterday an entire holiday town — Buffalo Bay outside Knysna — and several neighbourhoods in the surrounding area had to be evacuated as fire-fighters tried in vain to halt a blaze that changed direction in unpredictable winds.
By yesterday evening, winds appeared to have subsided over much of the affected area, with milder wind forecast for the southern Cape today. However, authorities have warned residents to be cautious.
Knysna Municipality yesterday said the fire had so far destroyed over 400 formal and 200 informal structures in and around the town, and a further 20 in Plettenberg Bay.
The figure includes a five-star boutique hotel outside Plettenberg Bay, several mansions on Robberg beach, and parts of Knysna’s ‘Wit Lokasie’ township overlooking the Knysna lagoon.
The full extent of the damage is not yet known due to the vast area involved, much of it remote.
Army helicopters deployed in Knysna yesterday dumped water from the lagoon onto fire hotspots in the surrounding hills, but had to be grounded for lengthy periods due to the severe wind.
Knysna endured a hellish night on Wednesday when large parts of three hilltop suburbs were destroyed, prompting chaotic scenes in the popular tourist town.
Wind gusts of up to 100km/h literally showered much of the town with embers, setting fire to pockets of vegetation.
In dramatic scenes befitting a war movie, about 100 people were temporarily evacuated onto the beach at Buffalo Bay yesterday afternoon as the fire closed off all escape routes. It later subsided and residents returned to their homes.
Those fit enough started walking into the wind, waves at their feet
A BEACH evacuation is not something you learn about at hotel school. But by 6pm on Wednesday it was the only option for Sarie Exton, general manager of the Brenton Haven Beachfront Resort in Brentonon-Sea; the beach was the only way out for more than 100 people sheltering there.
Cats, dogs, people in wheelchairs, even somebody on oxygen — Exton’s hotel was literally the end of the road for people trapped by fire on Knysna’s western headland.
“People came from everywhere,” Exton said on Friday. “We were supporting them and making them comfortable.” There was even a group from the frail-care unit of a nearby luxury estate. “Some arrived with nurses and we had to put them into beds.”
There they stayed, sipping tea and soup, until the call came to evacuate: the fire was sweeping down on them, leaping hundreds of metres at a time. “It felt like doomsday,” Exton said.
With the help of her staff and Working on Fire personnel, she started moving people onto the beach, using wheelchairs to ferry the most infirm. In the fierce wind they made a bonfire and handed out blankets.
Those who were fit enough started walking to Buffalo Bay, 5km away, straight into the wind with waves lapping at their feet. The rest were packed into a fleet of 4x4 vehicles which arrived from as far away as Mossel Bay to ferry people to safety along the beach. Some vehicles made numerous trips.
Exton explained: “Volunteer vehicles arrived from Buffalo Bay, some random strangers who came and offered their vehicles.”
She was one of the last to leave. Standing on the beach, she watched flames rear up behind the hotel, engulfing the adjoining self-catering chalets. “There is hot air all around and you can actually feel the heat coming towards you,” she recalled.
At that point she thought the hotel had gone, and sent a message to the foreign-based owners. “All I could see was flames. I WhatsApped the owner and said: ‘Our baby is gone — it is burning inside.’ ”
Only in the morning did she discover that the hotel had escaped unscathed, unlike dozens of houses nearby.
One of those who braved the walk to Buffalo Bay was pensioner Sue Fairweather, who evacuated her home in Brentonon-Lake, up the road, with only some spare clothes, her laptop, iPad and medicine.
Although a regular beach walker, she said she was unprepared for the hellish trek straight into the wind. “It was the most horrible experience ever. The wind was howling, the sand was blowing, it was freezing cold and it was dark.”
It took evacuees close to two hours to reach Buffalo Bay, after which they were again evacuated, to Sedgefield, then accommodated at a hotel.
Fairweather said they were unable to contact friends and family. “The worst thing was we lost signal at 8pm. No communication. And they were devastated because they couldn’t get in touch with us. I think they were more frantic than we were. I was kind of calm. There were a lot of people who were hysterical, which was understandable because you are really losing your whole life.”
Fortunately, Fairweather’s house survived unscathed, but five others in her row did not.
She said the ordeal prompted reflection about people for whom fires were a regular menace. “We have just experienced a small fraction of what 90% of our population experiences.”